On Dropping the Ball
Monday, July 29th, 2024 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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75F and cloudy tonight, going down to 66F overnight.
Well, today was kind of a big nothing-burger.
I was out the door by 10:40 and got to the Lawyers on Lake just before 11AM.
I was of course asked to wait, and then Mr. Taylor's attorney, Jim showed up and introduced himself.
But when we got in to see the Lake Lawyer, it was like... all he wanted me to do was e-sign two documents he'd e-mailed to me!
Like, what?
I could've done that from home!
But then he said the actual closing will be Thursday at the Title Company on Galena, at 1PM.
So here's more of a play by play...
Lake Lawyer comes out holding a huge folder full of documents.
Jim introduces himself, and Lake Lawyer seems surprised, and perhaps a little ticked off.
We all sit down and Lake Lawyer tells me he emailed me docs to e-sign... so I start looking on my phone for the emails and then the two attorneys began to chat.
Lake Lawyer disappears.
I e-sign the two documents, and get a notification that they've been signed, which also went out to my siblings... who'd also e-signed the same things two weeks ago.
At this point I'm expecting Lake Lawyer to come back in with more paper documents for me to sign, but when he does return, he just says, "When would you like to do the closing?.. Thursday or Friday?"
I said, Thursday.
And then he told Jim where it would be, and what time... and Jim said he'd email that information to me.
And that was it!
So when Jim and I got into the parking lot I said, "That wasn't what I expected to happen today. I could've e-signed from home. Do you think this went differently because you were here?"
Jim said he didn't think so. He thought it was odd that they'd be having me sign anything in a lawyer's office, and not at the title company.
So I guess there's nothing to worry about?
And I guess we're finally gonna close on Thursday?.. unless Jim sees that the papers are fucked up and trying to cut Mr. Taylor out of the deal, or something.
But Thursday is also August 1st, and 1PM is when I'm supposed to be at work, so I'm not very happy about closing after July's already ended, and being an hour or more late to work.
But will I even be working on August 1st?
There was no news on the union front at work today... no new proposal or new vote, and no notice of when we'd hold a new vote.
But there were more strike rumors floating around.
Tom said he heard that to strike, 90% of us have to vote no on the next proposal... as opposed to 75% the first time around?
I'm not sure whether to believe that or not.
But some electrician dude, talking to Tom and I in the hall was saying he thinks there will be a strike, and Galan, a custodian, is growing ever more scared of a strike, because he's worried about there being a gap in his insurance coverage.
But it's just little snippets of rumors, and I still don't know who to contact or where to go online to find out what's actually going on.
Still, GeoStaff's current contract expires August 1st, so... something's gotta happen in the next two days!
And if we do strike, then... it'd have to begin Thursday.. which means that Thursday, I could be both on strike, and selling the house!
OR...
The union could take a shitty deal and not strike... and the closing could fall through!.. which would mean Thursday, I'm just late for work and super depressed!
Because in that scenario I'd know I couldn't buy the house back... but also that I'm not getting any money to help me get through August!.. and that I'm still stuck with the house... and that I'm gonna have to stop paying PNC or declare bankruptcy or something.
But there are the other hybrid scenarios where I do sell the house, but we don't strike... or... We do strike but the sale falls through!
The first of those two hybrids wouldn't be so bad.
The second one would be pretty bad, because I'd be losing money on strike, but also not getting any sale money.
I basically just have to suffer through tomorrow and Tuesday in the dark, not knowing what my fate will be on August 1st!
And for way too long, that's been the theme of my life!... suffering in uncertainty while other players are witholding information, or misinforming me, and then totally fumbling the ball!
Whenever I have the ball... I get shit done!
I got Yvette to safety.
I nailed the interview for Potawatomi.
I got myself into an apartment and moved myself.
Meanwhile I trusted Mr. Taylor to get the house sale closed in EARLY July!.. and he fumbled the ball, by going with an incompetent title company, and apparently partnering locally with some guy who may be trying to shut him out of the deal.
Yes, Taylor's people caught that I had fumbled the TODI, but the fix for that was to get my five siblings all to sign authorizations, and we knocked that out of the park!
Only for the Lake Lawyers to misplace Brian's papers for a week!
Meanwhile, I was told at work that the union negotiations weren't until the END of August... misinformation!
And... the further back you go... that's just been the story!
The foreclosure defense lawyers were useless, but lead me to believe there was hope.
Tom, the original lawyer before the foreclosure was useless.
BMO's branch banker misinformed Dad that he wouldn't have to pay a balloon payment.
To put it another way... there is only so much one person can know, or can do.
So this is why we have; personal bankers at the branch bank, notaries, lawyers, loan officers, union reps, etcetera... so that a responsible person has somebody to PAY... to know the things they don't know... and do the things they can't do!
And I have been consistently failed by all these professionals along the way!
The branch banker could've prevented this whole nightmare, just by telling us the truth in 2022, that, Yes, you will have to pay a 13K balloon payment in one year.
We would've figured it out! We had a year, and my credit score was 800!
My lawyer, Tom, could've prevented the nightmare, in mid 2023, if he'd caught that the TODI wasn't valid!
He could've used that information to keep BMO from going to foreclosure until my siblings and I had a chance to work it out... and get a refinance that did pay them off!
But let's not forget that the bigger mistake on the TODI was the notary fucking it up!
If it had been properly notarized... and the only complaint was that it wasn't prepared by a licensed attorney... the argument could have been more easily made that Dad's intentions were clear!
And then the sibling authorizations could've straightened it out in time for a refinance that actually went through.
Again... we're talking about people who I PAID, to help me deal with the situation... because I knew I was out of my depth!
That's the only responsible thing to do!
But it's useless if licensed professionals are just as stupid and incompetent as everybody else!
Dad & Mom also hopelessly fumbled the ball, when it came to planning for their old age... which is the main reason I'm in this whole mess!
Their fatally myopic mistake was to assume, with full certainty, that Dad would die first!
They were positive that's how it would go down.
So that's the ONLY contingency they planned for!
If Dad had died first... Mom would've gotten ass-loads of insurance money out of it.
AND, she would've been able to continue collecting his pension!
And, not wanting to chance it living alone, she'd have easily sold the house and moved into one of the, like... TEN senior living centers we have around here!
In that scenario, whether or not I was living in the house, I'd have been free to continue working full time, and still had that 800 credit score, so I'd either be fine still on my own, or it'd be easy to move out, or... maybe I'd even have been able to buy it from her.
The balloon payment wouldn't've mattered either.
Because if Mom had lived... she wouldn't have allowed them to max out the line of credit in the first place, but she'd also have kept their credit score high enough to refinance the mortgage, if the balloon was too big to manage.
Dad let her deal with all that stuff, and never bothered to understand it himself... because he was going to die first!
She'd always be there to take care of it!
But the scenario we got in real life was Mom dying first... which left next to no life insurance money for Dad, and... well, she didn't have a pension!
I don't even KNOW what that man would've done, if I hadn't moved back!
He would've just stayed in the house, screwing up his finances, letting it get all infested with mice, as it slowly went to hell, with all of it's maintenance issues...
And he would've just fallen down in the kitchen and laid there on the floor until he died!
As the only kid left in town... I had no choice but to move back in there and look after him!
And I SHOULD HAVE been able to deal with all the issues after his death and hang on to the house!
The only reason I couldn't was... once again... because I was failed by a series of incompetent professionals!
Starting with that branch banker!
But including the mobile notary at his death bed... Tom, the first lawyer, the title team on the refinance, and even the foreclosure defense lawyers!
And now I'm in this little studio apartment, not knowing for sure if I'll ever even be able to sell the house, for a lousy 5K... and clueless as to what my union's doing...
With my future still depending on professionals NOT dropping the ball!
Has a single professional NOT dropped the ball?
I'm raking my memory to think of a single professional who did not drop the ball!
There haven't been any!
So, it's almost a guarantee that the house does not close on Thursday... and also that we fail to strike.
I will consider it a miracle if either thing goes right this week.
Okay, here's what I'm gonna do!..
On Thursday, at that signing, if something goes wrong, and people start telling me they need another day, or week, or 10 days, or whatever?
I'm just gonna say to all parties in the room, It it August 1st, and I need this money to pay my bills. So if this cannot close TODAY!.. I am pulling out! Either this closes today... or I'm done!.. and the house can sit there until BMO auctions it off!
Now I'm gonna go out that door to have a smoke outside!
So you people figure out amongst yourselves whether you want this house or not!
I really will do that, because this is ridiculous!
I don't even own that house!
Which means I'm under no obligation to keep insuring it!
And the electric bill is still in Dad's name!
So ComEd can keep powering it for as long as they like, but I'm never paying them another dime!
I'm not paying water gas, garbage, anything!
Let it rot!.. until BMO decides to auction it!
I needed 3K to cover my expenses moving into this place, and I'll likely never see it.
And they're not gonna strike, so I'll probably get a buck raise this year!
So it's gonna be bankruptcy or... the cheep version of bankruptcy, which is just ducking the creditor for seven years, and taking the credit score hit, down into the teens for that long.
That means I'll stay in the tower that long too... cuz ya can't move without a credit score.
So it all gets really simple, if this doesn't close on Thursday!
It's just... fuck the sale, fuck the house, fuck the creditors, scrape to survive for years to come, and maybe graduate to a 1BR here in the building.
But at least in that life, I won't be relying on a bunch of inept professionals to try and bail me out of a nightmare my idiot parents created for me, with their bullshit certitude that Dad would die first.
I'll be relying on myself... and I KNOW that I can be relied upon!
So I'll be fine!
°¦}
